1. Technology Field
This disclosure generally relates to the field of security tags, and more particularly, to a system and method for automatically deactivating a security tag upon entry into a business establishment.
2. Description of Related Art
One way of providing security for merchandise in a retail facility is the use of traditional electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems. Such systems include a transponder (also referred to as “EAS security tags”) affixed to each article of merchandise to be protected and an EAS detection gate. The transponder normally takes the form of an electromagnetically responsive element enclosed in a plastic label, paper tag, sleeve of fabric, or hard plastic case. Security tags may comprise hard tags or soft tags wherein hard tags include a security element(s) within an enclosure or housing that can be detached from the article it is protecting and typically re-used. Soft security tags, on the other hand, are in the form of a label (e.g., a sticker, care-label, content label, paper hang-tag, etc.) that are typically planar in form. This disclosure is directed to deactivatable soft tags. The responsive element may be a strip of ferromagnetic material, a section of acoustomagnetostrietive metallic glass, a parallel resonant circuit made with a capacitor and an inductor, a strip antenna connected to a diode, or an antenna coupled with a radio frequency identification (RFID) integrated circuit, i.e., an RFID security tag. These technologies, termed EM, AM, RF, RFID and microwave, respectively, normally operate at a characteristic frequency determined by a combination of regulatory and historical reasons. The detection device consists of an antenna connected to both a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter is arranged to provide a stimulating signal to the transponder element. The receiver is arranged to determine whether a transponder element of the requisite type is near the detector; for RFID security tag detection, RFID readers are used. Typically, detection devices are used to sound an alarm if a transponder is detected by a device located at a point of egress. When merchandise is purchased, HAS security tags or RFID security tags may either be removed or be deactivated by the application of special electromagnetic fields. Typically, in the U.S., such EAS anti-theft security systems use 8.2 MHz and associated 8.2 MHz security tags whereas RFID anti-theft security systems use 13.56 MHz, 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz+ along with the associated RFID security tags.
However, security tags that are not deactivated at the point of purchase either by omission or by failed deactivation can cause false alarms at subsequent stores. The frequency of such false alarms has been termed “tag pollution.” To avoid this problem of tag pollution, conventional methods have been to: (a) ask consumers to remove the tag; or (b) permanently deactivate these security tags. But the problem with such conventional methods has been that: (a) the consumers do not comply with removing the tags after purchase; or (b) many conventional tag deactivators cannot guarantee security tag deactivation and security tags designed to guarantee permanent deactivation are currently too expensive.
What is needed is a system and method to automatically deactivate a security tag upon entry into a business establishment, thus eliminating the false alarms caused by live security tags being reintroduced back into the same establishment or introduced from another store into the establishment. Deactivating security tags at entry into a business establishment, herein known as the point of entry, will eliminate tag pollution.
The term “security tag” as used in this Specification covers all types of soft deactivatable security tags, including EAS security tags and RFID security tags.